Description: On November 20, 2003 radar from the FAA
(Federal Aviation Administration) and NORAD (North American Air Defense
Command) detected an unknown radar target within restricted air space
around the Whitehouse. Although the exact time that the radar blip
was discovered is not known, the time was likely between 9 and 9:20 AM
E.S.T. Upon discovery of the anomalous radar echo preparations were
made to evacuate the Whitehouse. NORAD immediately scrambled
two fighter aircraft to the area where the radar blip was seen. Once no target
was discovered the Whitehouse evacuation was called off. The
newscasts describing the sighting can be read from the Fox News article, Reuters News article, or CNN News article.

Investigator Notes: Upon learning of this sighting I collected
information from newscasts (see above). I submitted a Freedom Of
Information Act Request (FOIA) to Andrews Air Force Base and to the FAA
Eastern Region. I requested a map of restricted air space around
the Whitehouse, all radar data in a 30 mile radius of the Whitehouse, and
tower logs from Reagan National Airport and Dulles International
Airport. Reagan National Airport is in downtown Washington, D.C. while
Dulles International Airport is in Chantilly, Virginia. My FOIA was
forwarded from Andrews Air Force Base to the FAA. None of my
questions was answered by Andrews Air Force Base (location from which the
two F16 fighter aircraft were scrambled). After nearly five months I received a
response to a small portion of my FOIA from the FAA. The radar data
was denied based on national security and a portion of the tower log was
blacked out at the time the UFO (anomalous target) was seen on
radar. (See Reagan
Airport tower log.) The times on the log are listed in UTC (universal
time) in the left hand column.
To compute Eastern Standard Time (EST) subtract 5 hours from UTC. The entry between 14:00 and 14:26 UTC (9:00 and 9:26 AM
EST) is blacked out. This “blackout” encompasses the time (9:20 AM
EST) when the Reuters and Fox News articles said that the anomalous
radar echo was detected and the Whitehouse was prepared for evacuation.Now we have to ask the
question:Why was the entry
blacked out?

1.For reasons of National Security?

2.To cover up military maneuvers?

3.A UFO was spotted on radar and we don’t want to
excite the public?

Obviously
we will never know for sure why the entry was blacked out.The official reason for the portion
of the FOIA denial was expressed in somewhat confusing terms.Several court cases were
referenced in the denial. The FOIA response from the FAA describes the reason for the denial. The response says that the
tower log entry is protected from release under "Exemption(2) High".

The same
reason for the denial was given by FAA for not releasing the radar data.
Again we have to ask the question? Why should radar data showing an
echo resulting from birds be a security issue? Could it be that the
radar data is restricted because of the military scramble? FAA could
have easily removed the returns resulting from the military aircraft and
then released the remainder of the data.

Through
discussions with NORAD I have learned that NORAD will institute an
aircraft scramble after any unknown aircraft that approach Canadian or
American airspace. We do not know if the radar return in this case
"approached" airspace or just appeared in the area. We do know that
the radar return appeared in restricted airspace near the Whitehouse (see
above map). Obviously NORAD was concerned enough to begin evacuation
of the Whitehouse and scramble two aircraft from Andrews Air Force Base.
According to the Fox and Reuters news articles the scramble was
called off and NORAD concluded that the radar echo was due to birds.

Further Thoughts: It is my belief that UFOs navigate by distorting
time and space. Obviously if they are coming here from distant star
systems they must have mastered traveling long distances by "shortcuts"
through time and space. For this reason I think that some anomalous
echoes that are seen by FAA and NORAD radar may in fact be UFOs skipping
through time and space. Because the craft are not seen approaching
U.S. or Canadian airspace, NORAD does not begin a scramble. It is
interesting to note that NORAD has responded to nearly 1,600 alerts
nationwide since 9/11. (See CNN article.)
We don't know how many of these alerts resulted in scramble of aircraft,
but we can probably assume that several incidents did result in scrambles.
Why have we only heard about a "handful" of these alerts?

Acknowledgement of FAA: Although UFOs Northwest disagrees with
the FAA decision to not release the radar data, we wish to thank the FAA
for providing the remainder of the information. We recognize that
the FAA operates under strict Federal statutes in the release of
information.

Concluding Thoughts: We will never exactly what happened on the
morning of November 20, 2003 that caused NORAD sufficient concern to begin
evacuation of the Whitehouse and scramble two aircraft. Radar is a
complicated instrument and anomalous echoes can result from several
phenomena not related to aircraft. However, newer radars are
designed to minimize these "anomalous" effects. Sometimes
weather may cause anomalous radar echoes. This can happen in the
nighttime or early morning hours due to temperature inversions.
Precipitation may also contribute to anomalous radar returns.
However, we know neither of these weather effects could have caused the
return because the detection occurred in the daytime and weather data
showed that no precipitation occurred on November 20 in Washington, D.C.
We are therefore left with NORAD's explanation of birds.

It is my belief that
some of these anomalous radar returns may in fact be unidentified aircraft
(UFOs). This is especially true when combined with eye witness
accounts. Since the end of World War II radar has had widespread
use. There are several instances of radar-visual sightings of UFOs
in UFO literature. Some of these cases have been extensively studied
by scientists.